Feel like we've been traveling forever and finally we are home! We still have some things to do before our upcoming china trip in April, but I'd like to write down some notes about the past two months and put a closure to it.
Here is our travel agenda since Nov 12th:
(Sam flew to VCU interview and came back on the 11th, I made sure we were almost packed when he got home at midnight)
Nov 12th- Early morning, drove about 9-10 hours to Mississippi stayed with Chase and Cait for the night;
Nov 13th- Drove 10-11 hours to Jacksonville FL for Mayo Clinic pre-interview dinner, stayed in Hotel 1 which was terrible btw;
Nov 14th- Mayo interview, I hung out in a park with the kids while Sam interviewed. Drove to Hotel 2 near legoland;
Nov 15th- Legoland! Yay! It was a blast btw. Stayed in the same Hotel 2;
Nov 16th- a little less stressful. Pack and drove to Orlando our best hotel of the trip Hotel 3 which was paid by Orlando hospital. Swam in their swim pool which was freezing but we loved it any way; Sam's pre-interview dinner that night;
Nov 17th- Orlando hospital interview; We packed everything up before interview and I hang out at a park with the kids during Sam's interview. Then we drove to Gainesville hospital pre-interview dinner. Stayed in Hotel 4.
Nov 18th-Gainesville hospital interview. We dropped Sam off at the hospital and then I went back to pack all our stuff by myself, ate breakfast with the kids, then picked up Sam after his interview. We drove to Gatlinburg Smoky Mountain national park hotel 5.
Nov 19th-Played at Smoky Mountain national park and stayed at the same hotel 5.
Nov 20th- Played a little more at the national park then drove to Knoxville Tennessee for Sam's pre-interview dinner. This was the only pre dinner that I got to go to this two weeks' trip. We had a great time although I was stressed the whole time worrying about kids going crazy at the dinner table (they did amazingly good that night). Stayed at Hotel 6.
Nov 21st- Knoxville interview. The hospital was really nice to have taxi take Sam to the hospital so I didn't have to drove him there. I packed up our stuff and then picked up Sam. This hotel was creepy, as I was packing our van, some wired guy kept calling our room phone. Gross! Picked up Sam and drove about 8 hours to Chase and Cait's. Think we got there around 11, it was late. So grateful for Chase and Cait to put up with us!
Nov 22nd- Boating with Chase and Cait's family! Fun!
Nov 23rd- Drove home, another 9-10 hours' driving.
We had a few days to stay home for thanksgiving before we drove down to Tucson. We were originally going to go camping with some friends during thanksgiving but were exhausted from our trip and had to cancel our camping trip. In short notice, we got to spend thanksgiving with one of Sam's professors' family. I was glad that I didn't have to cook the whole meal after the exhausting trip.
Nov 29th- Drove about 10 hours to Van Horn Texas, Stayed in Hotel 7 which was super horrible. You won't believe it! There was a DIRTY SOCK behind our bathroom door and the bathroom light wouldn't turn on. But at least they let us stay there for free after cleaning the bathroom again.
Nov 30th- Drove around 7 hours to Tucson. Pre-interview dinner. Thanks to Jayne and David for watching the kids so I could go to the dinner with Sam. It was a good night.
Nov 31st-Dec 31st Stayed in Tucson. We went to Mexico beach house for a week from Dec 8th-Dec 14th. It was so fun! On Dec 14th, Jayne and David watched our kids again while Sam and I went to a pre-interview dinner. Sam went to Phoenix for interview and then LA for interviews from Dec 16th-19th. We were planning on driving up together but I decided that I could not take it and it would be too hard on the kids so the kids and I stayed in Tucson. Although, I am not sure if it was harder staying with the kids without a husband and without a car or traveling with kids and with a husband. Sam had to drove back all the way to tucson from LA on the 19th and drove back up to Phoenix the next day for our rogers family dinner. I fell asleep but I think he got to Tucson close to midnight that night. While staying in Tucson, we went to a jumping house, winter haven to see lights, lots of cousins' play which I will talk about in my next blog. Dec 31st, we went to a friend's pre-new year party which was fun but we were all so exhausted that day.
Jan 1st-Jan 6th Dove about 12-13 hours up to Utah, Stayed with Aunt Kerri and Uncle Bret and Grandma Neville. Aunt kerri and Uncle Brett were really nice to offer to babysit for us twice so we could go to a dinner and a movie. I will talk about our fun sledding with Aunt Melanie and Uncle Roark in the next one.
Jan 7th- Drove about 10 hours to Albuquerque. Crashed at a friend's house.
Jan 8th- Only drove 14 hours home, made it home before midnight ;)
Are you exhausted from reading my list? I'm exhausted every time I think about what we did the past two months. Seriously I didn't know that I could pull through it and now that I did, I know that I am never going to do it again like this. Here are what I think was hard about this trip:
1, Cheap hotels were filthy. 1 out of 7 hotels we stayed in was good and that one hotel was because the hospital was generous enough to pay for it. It was $150 a night!! And how much we paid for our hotels? Around $50 per night. So you can see the difference. I was stressed out the whole time in the hotels telling my kids to not lick the floor. Not literately licking, but close. After the trip, I told Sam that I could not stand cheap hotels any more with young kids and we have to pay more money for it and make up the money in other places. Some day when we have money...
2, Our old Toyota Sienna minivan sucks! I've totally developed a jealousy towards Chase and Cait's minivan where you can put three kids in the middle seats. For our case, we put all three kids in the back row seats for our first two weeks of traveling. Because we had to carry more stuff for kids to sleep on the ground in the hotels, but cant use a car top carrier since I won't be able to manage it during Sam's interviews. So we had to fit all our stuff inside the van. And basically we cant see our kids, cant reach them, sometimes cant even hear them when driving. Whenever somebody needs something, screams, or whatever, we either had to tell them to deal with it or stop the car. Sucks sucks sucks! I felt like crying many many times. Then the trip to Tucson and Utah, we could use a car top carrier and we had a little less stuff, so we put Peter in the middle seat and both Enoch and Michael set at the back row seats. It was a little easier cause Peter was usually the problem. And I could reach him to give him food or toys to distract him. But, oh but how I wished that we could have a minivan to fit all three kids in the middle row seats. Wouldn't that be wonderful? We can reach them, give them food, we can talk to them normally instead of screaming to them so they can hear. Peter won't get bored being by himself. Anyway, so there was a decision made after the trip: We are selling our van and get a new model where we can fit all three kids in the middle row seats. To be fair, I have to acknowledge that our kids did AMAZING for how long they had to stay in the car! Enoch and Michael were great at entertaining themselves for a long time without ipad or anything and can enjoy listening to kids' books. They were also great at having as much fun as they could during our short stops.
3, How my kids' behaviors are influenced by all the traveling in closed van, moving from hotels to hotels and houses to houses:
--- They seemed to be losing their long attention span probably due to less play time. Sometimes we were limited with time, sometimes we were limited with play parks, sometimes we were limited with weather, sometimes we were limited with transportation. Our boys' play time got cut down a lot. Once in Tucson when Sam was doing an interview, my boys got bored and wanted to go to Sabina canyon and we had no car to drive to. So they insisted that I pull them there with a wagon and we did. I pulled all three of them in one wagon, Enoch and Michael switched to hold Peter in their laps. So we could go there and then go for a walk in the canyon.
--- They fought with each other a lot more. I don't deal with fightings very well. I simply don't have patience for it. My usual method is to take them out where they can put their energy in playgrounds, pools, things at the various museums and animals at the zoo... but I cant seem to use that method when we were away. I guess maybe I was too cheap to pay for any expensive one time visit tickets...
--- My boys got anxious whenever we had to go to another new place. Enoch would ask nervously if we had to stay at so and so's house sometimes. Michael sometimes would plainly say that he didn't want to go somewhere or do something which he never did before. Peter just got so clingy this whole trip. But he did get better by the end of it.
4, All these influenced us as parents as well. I had no way of knowing how hard it was before hand, and I was feeling emotionally exhausted. After the trip, Sam asked me "Do you think going to China would be as hard as this long trip?" I think he was a little nervous. I said "No." I am sure if you just travel to one place and stay there for a month is not as hard as moving from places to places for two months. I would know because we went back to china three times, once even went by myself when I was pregnant with two boys under the age of 3.
5, Our boys got used to speaking English more often and it was hard for us parents to monitor when to speak Chinese during our trip. We get frustrated when our boys still speak English when nobody else was around. Because we know that the younger ones are going to forget quickly if Chinese is not said or heard every day. On top of that, Sam had been diligently teaching Enoch and Michael Chinese from a text book but it wasn't really convenient during the trip. So we worry about it almost all the time and get frustrated with it all the time too. And we know that the influence is going to last for a long time even after we get home and it's going to be hard for us to try and get them back on track again. I don't know how many times today Sam and I had to remind our boys to speak Chinese.
6, If you know how much our boys love to sleep in then you know how hard it was to get them out of their beds a couple of hours before their usual wake-up time, get dressed, get in cold air and car, and eat dry cereal in cups. Don't be too jealous when I tell you they usually wake up between 7:30-8, sometimes they can sleep after 8am (Not complaining about this one)! We had to do early wake-ups so often this trip! I always got so nervous when it was time to wake them up. If only one of them cried then I called it a good morning. Sometimes all three of them would cry and refuse to do anything, bad start for everybody!
7, Packing and unpacking sucks! If you do it once or twice, I guess it's not too bad. But imagine you had to do it 15 times...
Home sweet home. Even though our house is not as big, as clean, or as organized, but it felt so good to be home. And having our privacy back is great too! Now I am done with the hardship, I can move onto the fun part which made the whole trip so worth it! Stay tuned... although I am not sure when I'll have time to write again... hopefully soon.
